Hartmut was completely overwhelmed.

This then was the solution of Wallmoden’s riddle.  He had not understood the ambassador, and had thought his insinuations of a different nature.

He could understand his mother’s hypocrisy now, her evasions, her kisses and flatteries when he pressed her with questions.  This last was indeed the worst of all—­and the last vestige of respect for her who had borne him died within him as he listened to his father’s recital.

The silence which ensued was awful.  It continued for several minutes, and when Hartmut spoke again his voice seemed to have lost all sound, and the words came brokenly—­scarcely audibly—­from his lips: 

“And you believe that I—­that I—­knew it?”

“I do,” the colonel answered shortly.

“Father, you cannot, you must not believe that, it would be too terrible.  You must believe me when I tell you that I had not the slightest premonition of such a disgrace.  I believed that part of our fortune was saved, I did indeed—­you must believe that, father.”

“No, you did not,” responded Falkenried, more coldly than ever.  Hartmut threw himself upon his knees.

“Father, by all that is sacred in heaven and earth—­oh, do not, do not look at me that way—­you will drive me mad.  Father, I give you my word of honor—­”

A wild, hideous laugh from his father interrupted him.

“Your word of honor—­you gave that at Burgsdorf.  Let us end this comedy; you cannot deceive me.  You leave me with one lie, you return to me with another.  You have become the genuine son of your mother.  Go your own way, and I’ll go mine.  But one thing I tell you, I command you!  Never venture to connect the name of Falkenried with the dishonored name of Rojanow.  Never let the world know who you are.  Remember this warning, otherwise my blood be upon your head—­for I will make an end of it all.”

With a cry of despair, Hartmut sprang up and would have rushed to his father, but the latter held him back with his hand.

“Perhaps you think that I love life.  I have borne it because I must, and I felt that it was my duty.  But there is a point where duty ends, you know it now—­so act accordingly.”

He turned his back to his son and stepped again to the window.  Hartmut spoke no word; in silence he turned and left the apartment.

The ante-chamber was not lighted, but the dim, distant light from the northern sky fell upon the face of a woman, who stood pale as death near the window, and whose eyes gazed with a look of indescribable anguish at the face of the miserable man who entered the room.  He saw her, and a single glance told him that she knew all.  His cup was full!  The woman whom he loved had been a witness to his terrible humiliation.

Hartmut never knew how he succeeded in leaving the castle; he only knew that he was suffocating within four walls and must have air.  But when he realized where he was and who he was, he was lying in the deep snow at the foot of an old fir tree.  It was night in the forest, a cold, icy night, the heavens were illuminated with a deep red glow which centered in the north and sent up its long, gleaming sheet of flame.